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■I    CLARA    E.  LAUGHLIN 


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D  IV  I  p  E  D 


The  STORY  "^^ 

of  a 


.^».  *i-~    Zl^^i^^inem 


-IS^®'— " 


POEM 


CLARA  E.  LAUGHLIN 


NEW  YORK  .  CHICAGO  •  TORONTO 

FLEMING   H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

.4a£»4iK>N  .  EDINBURGH 


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Dedicated 


To   THOSE    TOILERS    WHO    HAVE    NEVER    LOOSED 

THE    CLASP   OF    LoVE    TO    FOLLOW    THE 

WINDING    WAY   TO    FaME 


— A4Aoa{ 


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Art  is  mtich,  but  Love  is  more  /^==: 
Art  symbolizes  heaven,  but  Love  is  God 
/t*>ff  makes  heaven. 
^^.^^^^^J^*"^^—  Aurora  Leioh. 


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diyii):et> 

THE   STORY 


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j^art  €>ne 


OHE  was  a  lonely  little  girl  in  a 
'^  bleak  farmhouse.  Years  ago 
her  mother  had  come  hither,  flushed 
with  romantic  sacrifice,  from  the 
teaching  of  literature  in  a  semi-rural 
academy  to  the  practical  facts  of 
"  help-meeting  "  on  a  farm  that  only 
grudgingly  yielded  its  stout-hearted 
young  owner  a  bare  sustenance. 

From"  the  eminence  of  being  ap- 
pealed to  from  three  counties  to  say 
who  wrote  "  Beautiful  Snow,"  and 
who  was  the  greatest  American  poet, 
and  why,  the  little  girl's  mother 
had  come  to  take  up  the  love-life 


-^^ 


~v 


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DIM* 


Oil  A 


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her  poets  told    about,   in    a    home        ^^ 
S:  whose  treadmill  demands  broke  her 
feeble  spirit  long,  even,  before  they^^^^^^ 
^^^  wore  out  her^frail  body.    Love  had^^"^S 
not  failed  Eer,  but  it  had  failed  to 
satisfy  her.     The  poor  little  spii"^^^^ 
hat  had  fattened  on  the  husks  oi^ii^sp^ 
neighborhood  eminence  and  a  hectic 
e  of  sentiment,  starved  on  the  ripe 
grain  of  motherhood  and  an  honest 
ve;  and  when  the  little  girl  was 
ight  years  old  she    found  iiBrself 
f  11' vaguely   mourning    heiLJnotherless- 
'^''•^iiess^Tiird  deriving  no  little  satisfac-* 
tion  from  the  fillip  to  her  imagination 
provided  by  a  picture  in  one  of  her^K,, 
mother's    poetry   books,    represent-^*^ ' 
ing  an  enormous  angel  flying  over 
^he  housetops  of  a  city,  bearing  to"!- 
dlands  above  theO^gure  of  a  full- « 
own  woman.  . "'  ^j^^fpii'^y-^! 


The  little  girl  missed  ,Ji^!r%iO' 


i-ii-jili 


DIVIDED  15 

ally,  for  the  broken-spirited  woman 
had  given  no  companionship  and 
little  even  of  supervision  to  her 
child.  But  the  child  had  an  in- 
herited sentimentality;  she  knew  it 
was  a  pathetic  thing  to  be  mother- 
less, every  one  said  so,  —  the  poetry 
books,  the  neighbors,  even  her  big, 
kind,  quiet  father,  who  indulged  her 
more  than  ever  because  she  had  no 
mother,  now. 

And  so  the  little  girl,  whom  her 
mother  had  named  Aurora,  for  love 
of  Aurora  Leigh,  went  her  lonely  way 
across  the  fields  to  school  when  the 
weather  permitted  (a  question  which 
she  alone  decided),  and  when  it 
did  n't,  sat  curled  up  for  long  hours 
in  some  quiet  corner  absorbed  witki 
her  dead  mother's  Family  Editions 
of  Longfellow  and  Whittier  and 
Burns,  and  her  well-worn  copies  of 
Pelicia    Hemans,    Owen    Meredith, 


■J     ■ 


16  DIVIDED 

and  Jean  Ingelow,  whereoutof  her 
untrained  fancy  read  marvels  of 
literalness  and  constructions  that 
might  well  have  wrought  consterna- 
tion in  the  authors. 
Many  of  the  poems  mystified  her 
^^5M-jinpleasantly,  many  of  them  she  liked 
not  at  all ;  but  of  her  many  favorites 
one  gave  her,  above  all,  the  supreme 
satisfaction  of  continually  piquing 
her  interest.  It  answered  all  the 
purposes  of  the  Sphinx  to  the  lonely 
child,  who  was  forever  questioning 
it  and  never  getting  any  answer. 

It  was  the  opening  poem  in  a  red- 
bound  book  by  Jean  Ingelow,  and  it 
was  called  "  Divided."  Perhaps  its 
illustrations  were  its  chief  charm ;  the 
first  of  them  represented  a  boy  and 
girl,  of  about  Aurora's  age,  playing  in 
a  meadow  starred  with  flowers,  —  for 
all  the  world  like  the  south  meadow 
of  Aurora's  father.    The  boy  chased 


^  ^t^ 


DIVIDED  17 

butterflies,  his  hat  in  hand  poised 
for  capture,  and  the  girl  gathered 
posies.  In  the  next  picture  they 
knelt,  jubilant,  beside  a  tiny  silver 
thread  of  water  trickling  through 
the  grass.  Parting  the  grasses  to 
determine  its  course,  the  laughing 
children,  in  picture  three,  held  each 
other's  hands  across  the  baby  brook, 
and  started  to  run  with  it.  In  pic- 
ture four,  the  brooklet  had  become 
a  brook,  and  the  children,  following 
their  new  treasure  towards  its  mouth, 
had  to  loose  their  mutual  clasp  as 
they  ran,  one  on  either  bank.  In  the 
picture  following,  the  brook  had  wid- 
ened still  more,  and  the  boy  and  girl, 
now  larger  grown,  waved  gayly  at 
each  other  from  their  opposite  sides. 
By  and  by  it  became  a  river,  and  the 
flower-starred  fields  led  the  way  to  a 
town  of  masts  and  spires ;  they  could 
no  longer  caU  across,  but  only  signal, 


18  DIVIDED 

yet  they  kept  on,  and  on,  and  on. 
At  last  the  river,  passing  the  town, 
widened  to  a  great  estuary,  and  on  a 
shore  whose  opposite  was  not  even 
dimly  discernible,  the  girl,  a  woman 
grown,  and  weary,  stood  and  waved 
a  signal  to  the  companion  she  could 
not  see,  and  from  whom  no  answer- 
ing signal  came  to  her. 

Aurora  agonized  over  the  story. 
What  did  it  all  mean?  Why  did 
they  let  go  hands?  Or  why,  if  after 
letting  go  they  found  the  stream  sep- 
arating them,  did  they  not  go  back  a 
little  space,  and  either  abandon  the 
trail  or  follow  it  together?  The  joys 
of  their  companionship  looked  so 
beatific  to  the  lonely  child,  she  mar- 
velled herself  heartsick  over  their 
separation.  Why,  when  they  found 
themselves  divided,  did  not  one  cross 
to  the  other  side?  And  it  was  sig- 
nificant, deeply  significant,  of  Aurora 


DIVIDED  19 

that  she  never  questioned  who  that 
one  should  be,  but  always,  while  sor- 
rowing unto  anguish  with  the  woman 
at  the  end,  blamed  the  little  gkl  in 
the  beginning  for  letting  go.'  ^~~^ 
There  was  a  brook  in  her  father's 
south  meadow,  —  a  full-grown,  trout- 
yielding  brook,  to  be  sure,  and  not 
an  incipient  trickle  playing  hide 
and  seek  among  the  grasses;  but 
there  were  flowers  just  as  in  the 
picture;  and  Aurora  looked  to  that 
meadow  to  yield  her,  some  day,  a 
boy  companion  who  should  chase 
butterflies,  cap  in  hand,  just  as  the 
boy  in  the  book  chased  them.  And 
most  determined  was  Aurora,  if 
that  boy  were  ever  found,  never  to 
adventure  with  him  where  they 
could  not  hold  hands  across,  never 
to  lose  him  for  lack  of  going 
over  to  his  side,  as  a  woman 
should. 


20  DIVIDED 

One  day,  —  such  is,  some  times, 
the  power  of  faith,  —  one  warm, 
bright  June  day  in  the  summer,  when 
Aurora  was  ten,  she  wandered  lone- 
somely  down  into  the  south  meadow 
to  think  about  the  boy  and  all  that 
he  typified  of  companionship,  and, 
lo!  there  he  was,  fishing  in  her 
father's    brook. 

The  very  white  bare  feet  that  he 
dangled  in  the  clear  water  were  all 
that  was  needed  to  denote  a  being 
from  remote  parts,  —  in  other  words. 
The  Boy !  Wrapped  in  delicious  de- 
ductions of  her  own,  Aurora  stood  so 
long  silently  contemplating  the  boy 
that  he  grew  restive. 

"  Well,"  he  snapped  finally,  with  a 
suddenness  and  a  testinegs  that  nearly 
precipitated  Aurora  into  the  brook, 
"what  you  gawking  at?" 

Aurora  evaded  the  question. 

"You  can't  catch  trout  that  way," 


DIVIDED  ^t 

she  volunteered,  after  an  awkward 
silence.    It  was  an  ill  beginning. 

"  What  way?  "  demanded  the- boy, 
haughtily. 

"  The  way  you  're  doin',''  rejoined 
Aurora,  losing  her  first  awe  and  wax-    ,,„^<r:-^*' 
ing  bold  with  the  consciousness  of    ^^^(^^ 
superior  knowledge. 

"You  dassent  to  put  your  feet  in 
the  water  when  you  're  fishin'  fer 
trout!  Why,  you  dassent  even  to 
leave  your  shadow  be  on  the  water, 
they  're  that  timid  and  smart !  You 
got  to  git  out  o'  sight,  an'  not  leave 
'em  see  your  line  even,  and  bait 
with  a  grasshopper,  and  be  awful 
quiet."    — '— 

It  cost  the  boy  a  struggle  to  know  | 

how  to  receive  this  gratuitous  advice, 
but  two  hours  of  patient  dangling 
and  flicking  the  water  with  his  gaudy 
patent  fly,  had  prepared  him  to 
hearken    to   Aurora's  wisdom  with 


--4 


^     ) 


inner,  but  not  outer,  meekness.  That 
she  was  right,  he  more  than  mis- 
trusted, but  how  to  avoid  saying  so, 
that  was  the  question. 

The  white  feet,  therefore,  remained 
defiantly  in  the  water,  and  the  gaudy 
Qj^'      fly  continued  to  keep  wary  trout  at  a 
distance,  while  between  the  two  on 
opposite  banks  of  the  wee  brook  a 
-■■■,,     ..-*,    rather  ominous  silence  rested. 
Tiy^Y-^^^^   "Where  do  you  live?  "  asked  the 
boy  at  length,  with  as  superior  an  air 
as  he  could  manage. 
p-^r         Aurora  indicated,  with  a  backward 
'  ■"'^~    jerk  of  her  thumb,  the  farmhouse 
whose  paintless  estate   she  did  not 
know    enough    by    comparison    to 
deplore. 
i^;j^5=>^"I  live  in  New,  York,"  said  the 
^  ^boy,  without  waiting  to  be  asked. 
Aurora    gasped,  —  so    audibly    that 
the  boy  almost  forgave  her  for  her 
advice  about  the  trout. 


^  r 


DIVIDED  23 

"  Ever  been  there?  '^  he  asked,  and 
the  meekness  of  her  faltering,  "  No, 
oh,  no !  "  put  the  boy  again  in  good 
favor  with  himself  and  in  a  proper 
masculine  position  of  superiority. 

He  vras  Garrett  Levering,  he  in- 
formed her,  visiting  his  uncle,  Amos 
Levering,  for  the  school  holidays. 

His  uncle  lived  on  the  best  farm 
in  the  vicinity,  and  owned  the  best 
farmhouse  for  miles  around;  but 
this  gave  him  no  particular  aristoc- 
racy in  Aurora's  mind,  there  being 
small  notion  of  caste  among  the 
hard-working  farmers  of  those  parts 
where  the  best-off  and  the  poorest 
alike  tilled  their  own  land  and  gar- 
nered their  own  yields.  In  New 
York,  however,  Garrett  went  on  to 
explain,  he  lived  in  a  brownstone 
front,  four  stories  high,  —  and  see- 
ing that  four  stories  conveyed  little 
meaning  to  Aurora,  who  had  never 


^^'-' 


24  DIVIDfitf 

1— "I— —^^^—^—^lll  I  ■  II  I  III.    ■!  !■  ■  t 

seen  a  house  of  more  than  one  story 
and  a  half,  he  elucidated  by  saying 
that  it  was  as  high  as  the  giant  elm 
against  whose  lofty  bole  Aurora's 
little  home-cot  leaned,  small  as*^  a 
toddling  child  against  a  great  man's 
knees.  This  comparison  was  some- 
thing of  an  exaggeration;  but  the 
boy  knew  it  no  more  than  the  girl, — 
so  really  sky-high  did  his  home  loom 
in  his  proud  memory,  alongside  the 
low-roofed  cottages  of  the  country. 
The  first  impression  of  that  great 
stone  house  reaching  far  into  the 
sky,  stayed  with  Aurora  for  many 
years  and  lent  its  majesty  to  the 
boy  who  emanated  therefrom  for 
her  companionship. 

That  summer  Aurora  read  no  more 
poetry  books ;  she  had  never  divulged 
to  Garrett  her  former  interest  in 
them,  being  a  little  sentimentally 
shy  about  the  poem  which  he  was 


— vf  ., 


DIVIDED  25 

in  part  realizing  for  her,  and,  for  the 
rest,  feeling  that  "  A  Psalm  of  Life," 
"  Snowbound,"  "  Miles  Standish,' ' 
even  "  Bingen  on  the  Rhine  "  were 
ill  worth  mentioning  after  the  tales 
Garrett  told  her  about  Richard  and 
Saladin,  the  "  Scottish  Chiefs,"  and 
"Robinson  Crusoe." 

When,  however,  the  first  of  Sep- 
tember was  at  hand,  and  Garrett  was 
about  to  go,  with  only  a  possibility 
of  return  the  following  June,  the 
pall  of  separation,  the  shadow  of 
dread  of  her  former  loneliness,  lay 
heavy  on  the  spirit  of  Aurora. 

He  left  on  a  Sunday  afternoon, 
and  after  the  early  dinner  at  his 
uncle's,  Garrett  obtained  permission 
to  trudge,  in  his  Sunday  suit  of  black 
and  his  shining  black  shoes,  the  two 
miles  of  hot,  dusty  road  to  Aurora's 
house,  to  say  good-bye.  Bantered 
by  his  uncle's  family,  he  set  off,  and 


,26  DIVIDED 

"^M^ 

received  by  Aurora's  father  with  a 
good-natured  but  insinuating  grin,  he 
was  bidden  to  "  set  out  in  the  yard 
where  it 's  cooler,"  and  to  take  off 
Ms  coat  for  comfort.  This  latter 
Garrett,  with  chilling  dignity,  de- 
clined to  do,  and  Aurora's  father 
was  reminded  how  averse  her  mother 
had  been  to  the  practice,  —  which 
sent  him  ruminating  into  the  house 
where,  in  the  shelter  of  the  kitchen 
porch,  he  weighed  the  chances  of 
Aurora's  getting  "  mixed  up  with  a 
city  feller,  some  day,"  and  suffering 
the  rebuffs  for  her  country  rudeness 
that  he  had  suffered  for  his  in  days 
gone  by.  _,.;^ 

Left  to  themselves,  the  children 
were  a  little  constrained  at  first.  Gar- 
rett was  not  specially  depressed  by 
the  impending  separation.  He  had 
the  world-old  masculine  advantage  of 
new  activities  ahead  to    anticipate, 

>"™— -"^  V-fi  , 


DIVIDED  27 

minimizing  the  reluctance  he  might 
have  felt  at  leaving  a  pleasant  sum- 
mer behind.  Aurora,  however,  wo- 
man-like, enjoyed  no  such  advantage. 
Change,  for  her,  meant  simply  a  stay- 
ing behind  in  scenes  long  irksome 
through  familiarity,  and  now  to  be 
more  bare  of  charm  than  ever  by  rea- 
son of  the  passing  of  companionship. 
The  colorlessness  of  the  seasons  be- 
fore he  came,  ranged  in  Aurora's 
mind  alongside  the  delights  of  this 
summer,  and  the  future  looked  drear- 
ier than  ever  to  her  without  him. 
Garrett  was  typical  male  enough  to 
realize  this  dimly,  and  to  chafe  under 
it,  as  a  man-creature  chafes  under 
parting, — half  sympathy  for  the  wo- 
man, half  impatience  to  be  gone. 

The  shadow  of  the  sky-high  house 
waiting  to  receive  him,  added  to  the 
tragedy  of  his  leaving,  made  the  con- 
versational channels  of  other  days 


.^^?^ jfS^ 


28  DIVIDED 

seem  quite  inadequate  to  Aurora,  and 
she  strove,  with  real  woman  bravery, 
to  turn  the  talk  in  the  direction  of 
his  future  interests,  —  when  his 
school  began,  what  he  was  going  to 
study,  and  if  he  should  be  glad  to  see 
"the  fellows," — and  to  keep  it  off 
the  subject  of  her  own  distress. 

At  length  the  afternoon  began  to 
wane,  and  Garrett  must  go.  After 
tea  his  uncle  was  to  drive  him  to  the 
depot,  and  put  him  on  the  train,  and 
late  that  night  his  father  would  be  at 
the  station  in  Jersey  City  to  take 
him  home.  To-morrow  school  would 
begin. 

Not  until  the  moment  came  to  say 
the  actual  good-bye,  did  Aurora  sum- 
mon courage  enough  to  ask  him  if  he 
thought  he  would  come  again  next 
summer.  He  did  n't  know  —  maybe 
so ;  maybe  not.  But  if  she  came  to 
New  York,  she  must  come  and  see 


DIVIDED  29 

him.  Aurora  thanked  him,  and 
voiced  nothing  of  the  bitter  disbelief 
in  her  own  heart  that  she  should 
ever  go  to  New  York.  She  was  as 
likely,  she  thought,  to  go  to  the 
moon. 
When  Grarrett  was  actually  gone, 

—  out  of  sight  down  the  dusty  road, 

—  Aurora  went  up  to  her  little  room 
in  the  half-story  of  her  paintless 
home,  and  threw  herself  on  her  bed, 
and  cried  and  cried. 

"  Gosh!  "  said  her  father,  who  tip- 
toed to  her  door,  and  tip-toed  away 
again. 

When  she  got  up  it  was  six  o'clock, 
the  time  Garrett  was  to  take  his 
train.  And,  going  to  the  little  hang- 
ing shelf  where  she  kept  her  neglected 
poetry  books,  she  took  down  her 
favorite,  and  for  the  first  time  in  her 
starved  little  life,  full  of  harsh  prac- 
ticalities, a  symbolism  flashed  upon 


30 


DITTDED 


her  inner  sight.  The  literalness  of 
her  former  renderings  became  foolish- 
ness to  her  in  the  twinkling  of  a  tear- 
wet  eye,  and  "I  know,"  she  said, 
shutting  the  book  with  a  sob,  "  it 
wasn't  a  brook;  he  had  to  go  away." 


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/BARRETT  did  not  come  next 
^^  summer.  He  went  to  Europe, 
whence  he  wrote  Aurora  once  or 
twice,  —  boyish  letters  filled  with  sta- 
tistics of  things  seen.  Nor  did  he 
come  the  next  summer,  nor  the  next, 
nor  the  next.  Several  times  there 
was  some  little  talk  of  his  coming, 
always  faithfully  reported  to  Aurora 
by  his  uncle's  folks.  But  his  father 
had  bought  a  place  at  the  seashore, 
and  Grarrett  preferred  going  there 
each  year,  and  renewing  acquaint- 
ance with  the  companionable  young 
people  of  the  other  cottages. 

After  five  summers  of  sailing  and 
swimming  and  other  seaside  pleas- 
ures, however,  the  place  rather  palled 
on  Garrett,  just  beginning  to  know 

3  33 


.-  r^^' 


^> 


34  DIVIDED 

the  ennui  of  eighteen.  In  June  of 
that  year,  therefore,  when  he  was 
preparing  to  take  his  examinations 
for  college,  his  father  proposed  to 
him  that,  since  he  was  so  tired  of 
Long  Beach,  he  might  go  up  to 
his  uncle's  and  put  in  a  long,  quiet 
summer  of  hard  work  and  simple 
living. 

Grarrett  thought  of  the  dusty  coun- 
-^^^ET^  roads,  the  low-roofed,  stuffy  farm- 
house, the  wide,  shadeless  meadows, 
without  enthusiasm.  But  ambition 
had  laid  hold  on  him ;  he  was  looking 
.^,_^  forward  to  his  college  career  with 
boundless  enthusiasm,  and  when  he 
thought  of  the  long  summer  days 
with  absolutely  nothing  to  divert  him 
from  his  books,  he  decided  to  go,  and 
one  June  afternoon  was  set  down  on 
the  blistering  board  platform  of  the 
station  at  Overbrook  with  a  bicycle, 
a  tennis  set,  an  up-to-date  fishing  out- 


DIVIDED  35 

fit,  a  guitar,  a  collie  dog,  a  camera, 
a  trunk  of  large  dimensions,  and  a 
very  nobby  valise,  —  furnishing  the 
station  loungers  with  food  for  a 
month's  conversation  at  least. 

''This  here's  Mr.  P.  T.  Barnum," 
said  Uncle  Amos,  facetiously,  to  Aunt 
Leila,  as  they  drove  up  to  the  porch ; 
"and  these,"  indicating  Garrett's  par- 
aphernalia with  his  whip,  "  is  his 
menagerie ;  he 's  brought  the  hull 
of  it  along."  '^ 

In  this  jovially  tolerant  spirit  Uncle 
Amos  and  Aunt  Leila  accepted  the 
lank  Grarrett,  shooting  up  toward  six 
feet,  and  all  his  "  f angle-dangles,"  as 
Uncle  Amos  termed  the  tennis,  the 
hand  camera  (then  a  great  novelty), 
the  high-wheel  bicycle,  the  guitar, 
and  the  "Sportsman's  Standard'* 
fishing  outfit. 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Aunt  Leila^  in 
confidence  to   Uncle    Amos,;^''asv'>lie 


j^^f^t' 


36  DIVIDED 

smoked  his  pipe  in  the  kitchen  door- 
way while  she  cleared  away  the  sup- 
per dishes,  "that  Grarrett  's  goin'  to 
be  kind  o'  lonely;  I  mistrust  how  our 
country  boys  '11  take  them  fal-lals.  I 
hope  they  won't  hurt  his  feelin's." 

"Don't  you  worry,  Ma,"  soothed 
Uncle  Amos,  a  shrewd,  kindly  twinkle 
in  his  keen  blue  eyes;  "I  would  n't 
wonder  if  Grarrett  'd  find  out  some 
things  this  summer  that  they  don't 
teach  in  college ;  but  they  won't  hurt 
him  none."  ___^«=>-^^' 

The  object  of  their  solicitude 
seemed  fairly  content,  sitting  on  the 
front  porch  and  smoking  the  little 
"bull-dog"  brier  pipe,  familiarity 
with  which  had  been  his  first  idea  of 
preparing  himself  for  college. 

The  next  morning,  however,  after 
an  hour  of  Horace,  he  was  more  at- 
tuned in  spirit  to  "  green  fields  and 
running  brooks,"    than  to  "render- 


^  tf—-^-— 


DIVIDED 


37 


ing"  and  syntax;  so,  putting  away 
his  books,  he  got  up,  thinking  to  hunt 
a  favorable  place  to  lay  out  his  tennis 
court,  and,  while  he  was  looking,  he 
might  be  doing  something  with  the 
camera.  ~ 

It  was  hot,  very  hot,  when  he  left 
the  shade  of  Aunt  Leila's  garden  and 
set  foot  on  the  dusty  road ;  and  some-  ^' 
thing  in  the  heat  and  the  dust  brought 
back  to  mind  prim  little,  perspiring 
Aurora,  as  she  had  looked  that  Sunday 
afternoon  in  her  stiffly  starched  white 
dress  and  vivid  pink  bows.  He  had 
almost,  if  not  altogether,  forgotten 
Aurora  of  late.  After  those  statistical 
letters  from  Paris  and  London,  he 
had  written  once  or  twice,  but  half- 
heartedly, and  at  long  intervals,  and 
Aurora's  last  letter  he  had  answered 
not  at  all.  He  could  remember,  now, 
when  it  came  to  him,  in  the  flush  of 
preparing  for  that  first  summer  in 


2 


■^ 


sr^^P 


r    '         -^^j  % 


r^' 


■tsUz-K"-- 


38  DIVIDED 

■>< . 

their  own  home  by  the  sea,  and  how 
its  stilted  little  sentences  about  the 
brook  in  the  south  meadow  being 
swollen  by  the  spring  rains,  and 
Daisy,  the  gray  mare,  having  a  colt, 
struck  him  as  unworthy  of  him  and 
reminiscent  of  an  acquaintance  that 
progress  bade  him  forget. 

Now,  as  the  recollection  of  her 
flashed  over  him,  it  was  not  unpleas- 
ant to  contemplate  the  effect  of  his 
great  stature,  his  threatening  mus- 
tache, his  bull-dog  pipe,  his  bicycle, 
his  guitar,  his  camera,  his  tennis  set, 
and  "  Sportsman's  Standard  "  on  the 
gawky  country  girl.  Garrett  quite 
liked  the.  idea  of  her  surprise  and 
awe.  Perhaps  he  would  take  her 
picture,  he  promised  himself,  recall- 
ing sundry  novels  he  had  read,  in 
lazy  hammocks  on  summer  days,  of 
artists  who  went  sketching  and  paint- 
ing in  rural  parts,   and  stirred  up 


1^' 


DIVIDED  39 

"  tumult  of  emotions  "  in  the  breasts 
of  their  nut-brown  models.  With  all 
his  holy  zeal  for  books,  Garrett  was 
at  the  age  when  stirring  up  a  tumult 
of  emotions  in  the  breast  of  anything 
young  and  feminine  was  no  ill-favored 
thought.  _— *^ 

Accordingly,  he  faced  him  in  the 
direction  of  Aurora's  home,  and  the 
two  miles  thereto  seemed  but  a  stride, 
so  lightly  buoyant  were  the  thoughts 
of  conquest  that  carried  him  along. 
How  surprised  she  would  be  to  see 
him !  She  would  remember  him,  of 
course  I  Doubtless,  it  being  early  in 
the  morning  (early  by  city  notions  of 
time),  she  would  be  unprepared  for 
company,  —  more  than  probably  con- 
fused at  being  caught  about  her 
homely  tasks.  But  he  would  reas- 
sure her,  Garrett  promised  himself. 
He  would  tell  her  how  picturesque 
the  peasant  women  of  Europe  were 


•i*^. 


^.  <^^ 


40  DIVIDED 

in  their  field  dress,  how  infinitely 
preferable,  to  the  artist  eye,  to  the 
modish  women  of  the  cities.  (Grar- 
rett  had  just  /ead  this  in  a  monthly 
magazine.) 

How  would  she  look,  he  wondered ! 
His  recollection  of  her  was  limited  to 
her  brown  feet,  decorated  with  stone 
bruises,  her  slender  brown  legs  that 
used  to  wade  in  the  brook,  and  the 
comical  incongruity  of  her  stiff  white 
dress  on  the  one  occasion  when  he 
had  seen  her  in  her  best  attire.  He 
could  not  even  remember  if  her  eyes 
were  blue  or  brown,  if  her  hair  was 
dark  or  light, — having  been,  when 
he  knew  her,  at  an  age  when  the 
masculine  eye  takes  least  note  of  the 
quality  of  feminine  charm. 

Arrived  before  the  little,  low-roofed 
house,  Garrett  hardly  knew  it.  His 
recollection  of  it  was  that  it  was  very 
bleak  and  comfortless-looking,   that 


DIVIDED  41 

it  suggested  (though  this  is  not  quite 
the  way  he  put  it  to  himself)  a  poverty 
not  of  means  alone,  but  of  spirit. 
Now  it  was  freshly  painted,  —  white, 
with  green  blinds,  —  and  there  were 
hollyhocks  growing  in  the  yard  where 
the  long  grass  made  no  pretence  of 
being  a  lawn,  but  shot  up  into  flower 
and  seed  as  it  listed,  nor  refused 
room  to  many  a  delicate  four-o'clock 
swaying  on  slender,  supple  stems. 

Aurora  would  be  at  her  house- 
work, Glarrett  thought,  —  churning, 
perhaps,  or  feeding  the  chickens  ; 
those  were  his  sole  ideas  of  country 
women's  industry.  Ought  he  to 
knock  at  the  seldom-used  front  door, 
and  give  her  time  to  "  primp  "  ere 
she  came  to  open  ?  Or  should  he 
walk  round  to  the  side  or  back,  and 
surprise  her?  Politeness  dictated  the 
former  course ;  dramatic  instinct  the 
latter,  and  dramatic  instinct  won. 


42  DIVIDED 

To  the  side-door,  therefore,  Garrett 
proceeded.  Although  he  had  not 
come  a-wheel,  he  had  worn  his  bicycle 
suit  of  gray  "  knickers "  and  hose, 
with  Oxford  ties.  It  was  too  hot  for 
his  natty  Norfolk  jacket,  but  he  wore 
it  bravely;  also,  in  the  stead  of  a 
straw  hat,  his  peaked  woollen  cap  to 
match  his  suit.  If  anything  one-half 
so  splendid  had  ever  been  at  Aurora's 
side-door  before,  Garrett  knew  little 
about  the  probabilities  in  a  one-horse 
country  town.  ___..-— =*''''*^'^ 

Before  he  had  rounded  the  comer 
of  the  house  the  pungent  smell  of 
suds  smote  his  nostrils.  Aurora  was 
washing!  A  jutting  angle  of  the 
house  hid  the  side-door  from  view 
until  one  was  quite  upon  it,  and  there, 
on  a  sort  of  platform  made  by  the 
widening  of  the  board  walk,  a  lusty 
country  girl  stood  rubbing  coarse 
clothes  with  hands  that  looked  cap- 


>-''^-N^^'>.(.<^ 


DIVIDED  43 

able  of  felling  an  ox.  Garrett  gave 
a  gasp  of  surprise,  but  the  keeping  of 
"  hired  help  "  in  these  parts  was,  he 
knew,  extremely  exceptional;  there- 
fore the  young  lady  of  the  house 
this  must  be. 

Lifting  his   cap    with    a    courtly  '"'^^^ 
deference,    he  inquired   if    he    had 
the  honor  of  addressing  Miss  Aurora 
Russell. 

"La!"  said  the  lady  addressed, 
and,  after  an  interval  of  frank  ex- 
amination, "  No;  she  ain't  to  hum." 

"  She  still  lives  here,  does  shel " 
Garrett  inquired,  replacing  his  cap. 

Yes,  she  lived  there,  but  she  had 
gone  out  nearly  an  hour  ago ;  no,  the 
lady  addressed  could  not  say  where 
she  might  be. 

Thanking  her,'^&arrett  took  his 
way  down  the  plank  walk,  past  the 
well  and  the  barn,  in  the  direction  of 
the  south   meadow.      Back   of    the 


44  DIVIDED 

house  was  the  orchard,  a  scraggly 
little  patch  of  poor-pedigreed  apples 
and  "  picklin'  pears"  which  never 
grew  luscious  and  golden.  In  spite 
of  its  poverty,  however,  it  was  June- 
beautiful  to-day,  but  Aurora  was  not 
there. 

She  was  by  the  brook-side  in  the 
south  meadow,  book  in  hand,  and  her 
book  was  Jean  Ingelow's  poems, 
bound  in  red. 

She  wore  a  pink  frock  of  a  nice 
material  hideously  denominated  seer- 
sucker, and  a  pink  sunbonnet  to 
match,  while  her  slim  brown  feet 
were  most  circumspectly  encased  in 
white  cotton  stockings,  and  neat 
black  slippers. 

Although  she  had  a  book  in  her 
hand,  Aurora  was  not  reading,  —  that 
is,  not  until  she  became  aware,  out 
of  the  corner  of  her  eye,  of  an  un- 
'^ontedly  nobby  figure  striding  down 


DIVIDED  45 

in  her  direction  from  the  orchard. 
Then  her  absorption  in  the  poetess 
became  prodigious;  not  even  the 
shadow  that  fell  across  her  book 
roused  her  until  a  gentle  "  Ahem !  " 
made  her  start  as  if  stung.  Then  she 
looked  up,  'way  up,  and  Garrett 
grinned. 

"  I  guess  you  don't  know  me,"  he 
said.  Aurora  looked  puzzled  for  a 
moment.  ^ 

"Why,  it's  Garrett  Levering! '* 
she  exclaimed,  as  if  she  could  hardly 
believe  her  senses. 

Yes,  he  assured  her,  it  was  Gar- 
rett, and,  if  he  was  not  mistaken,  she 
was  Aurora  Russell,  who  had  once 
given  him  a  lesson  in  fishing  for 
trout.  Having  said  so  much,  Garrett 
was  at  a  loss,  for  a  few  seconds, 
for  further  speech;  he  had  forgot- 
ten to  calculate  on  the  girl's  being 
pretty!         ,  . 


C    ^"^ 
46  DIVIDED 

Aurora  was  better  prepared;  she 
had  pictured  him  so  much,  and  so 
idealizingly,  that  it  would  scarcely 
have  surprised  her  to  find  his  head 
three  feet  farther  into  the  clouds 
than  it  was,  or  his  distinguished  bear- 
ing three  times  augmented  (if  that 
could  have  been  possible).  Also 
Aurora  had  her  due  complement  of 
feminine  finesse.  Garrett  had  come 
there  to  find  her,  had  found  her,  and 
was  no  more  able  to  dissimulate  the 
fact  than  any  man  of  eighteen,  or 
twice  eighteen.  Aurora  had  come 
here  to  be  found,  had  realized  her 
expectations,  but  was  woman-child 
enough  to  appear  dumfounded  by 
the  unheralded  apparition.  And  as 
guile  is  readier  of  tongue  than  simple  J  [ 
honesty,  Aurora  advanced  to  com- 
mand of  the  situation  long  before 
Garrett's  frankly  astonished  gaze  had 
done  wandering  from  point  to  point 


"^  ^^ 


^ 


DIVIDED  47 

of  her,  as  if  in  pursuit  of  some  least 
suggestion  of  the  girl  of  six  years 

ago.  ^ 

It  was  not  (although  Garrett  did 
not  know  this)  that  the  girl  was  so 
pretty,  but  that  she  appealed  so 
strongly  to  the  imagination,  —  which 
is  a  much  more  dangerous  quality,  of 
course,  than  any  amount  of  mere 
prettiness.  There  was  something  in 
the  unconscious  grace  of  her  supple 
young  body  that  thrilled  one  like  tl^ES^SS^  ^n-\ 
swaying  of  tall  grasses,  and  there  was 
an  unforgettable  look  in  the  serious 
brown  eyes,  —  a  look  that  might  re- 
cord or  portend  almost  anything.  .,  ,  . 
Garrett  was  more  bewildered  than  ..;^'JP',4%i 
merely  admiring,  and  while  he  pon- 
dered, awkwardly  and  obviously, 
Aurora  plied  him  with  questions  as 
to  when  he  had  come,  how  long  he 
was  to  stay,  and  the  like,  —  just  as 
if  she  had  not  been  informing  herself 


'^f^JJ7hsg^ 


48  DIVI 


Dtelf^ 


on  these  points  by  interrogating  his 
uncle's  family  for  an  interminable 
fortnight. 

When  he  found  his  sober  senses 
somewhat,  he  inquired  of  Aurora, 
politely,  what  she  was  reading.  Told 
it  was  poetry,  he  inquired  whose. 
Told  it  was  Jean  Ingelow's,  he  in- 
quired if  Aurora  liked  it.  Told  that 
she  did,  he  made  request  that  she 
read  him  some  passages,  and  then 
threw  himself  down  alongside  her,  as 
the  painters  in  the  novels  always  did 
by  their  nut-brown  heroines. 

Aurora  considered  her  poem  for 
a  brief  moment,  then  turned  shyly  to- 
ward the  back  of  the  volume,  as  far 
away  from  it  as  possible,  and  read, 
sedately,  "  Seven  Times  ' '  conscien- 
tiously through,  from  "  Seven  Times 
One  "  to  "  Seven  Times  Seven." 

Sympathy  lent  modulation  to  her 
clear  young  voice,  and  Garrett,  listen- 


"m 


DIVIDED  49 

ing,  caught  far  less  of  Miss  Ingelow's 
intent  than  of  the  more  salient  fact 
that  the  girl  who  read  was  a  poetry- 
lover, —  a  kindred  soul,  iu  other 
words. 

One  poem  from  the  book  sufficed, 
for  when  the  heart  beats  young  it 
has  recourse  to  poetry  only  to  stimu- 
late itself ;  old  hearts  read  to  forget, 
—  young  hearts  read  to  be  reminded 
that  the  world  is  theirs. 

Talking  of  poetry,  Garrett  asked 
Aurora  if  she  liked  Shelley,  —  that 
dear  idol  of  youth!  —  and  Aurora 
pleading  ignorance  of  his  poems, 
Garrett  recited  to  her  snatches  of 
**  The  Skylark,"  "  The  Cloud,' ^  "  To 
Jane,  With  a  Guitar,"  "  Constantia, 
Singing,"  and  "  The  Sensitive  Plant." 
Aurora's  face  flushed  with  delight  in 
their  beauty,  but  the  poems  that 
moved  her  to  her  young  soul's  depth, 
Garrett    soon    learned,  were  poems 


50  DIVIDED 

like  "  Evangeline,"  "  Enoch  Arden," 
and  "  The  Idylls  of  a  King."  Her 
perception  of  beauty  was  good,  con- 
sidering that  it  had  been  so  wholly 
uneducated;  but  passionate  appre- 
ciation of  the  human  drama  requires 
no  preparation  save  a  nature  tuned 
to  sympathy.  In  her  starved  little 
life  Aurora  had  not  turned,  as  so 
many  lonely  souls  do,  to  Nature  for 
companionship,  but  had  sat  through 
the  procession  of  the  years,  —  bud 
and  blossom  and  fruit  and  seed, 
requiem  and  resurrection,  bird-song 
and  soughing  wind,  —  indifferent  to 
the  drama  of  earth,  and  wistful  to 
be  close  to  the  human  drama ;  unre- 
gardful,  of  course,  of  the  human 
drama  as  it  played  itself  at  Over- 
brook,  —  but  that  was  to  be  expected 
of  her  youth. 

From  Shelley  and  her  confession 
of  fealty  to  Longfellow  and  Tenny- 


DIVIDED  51 

son,  it  seemed  but  a  step,  to  Garrett, 
to  the  declaration  of  his  own  poetic 
purposes,  —  a  confidential  murmur  of 
some  of  his  achievements,  even. 

Aurora  was  entranced,  though  the 
poems  recited  to  her  by  their  author 
were  so  crammed  with  mythological 
allusions  that  she  could  scarcely 
catch  their  meaning. 

It  was  high  noon  ere  it  seemed  to 
the  young  people  by  the  brook  that 
they  had  fairly  exchanged  civilities, 
and  Garrett,  getting  up  to  go,  remem- 
bered his  camera  and  posed  slim, 
sweet  Aurora  for  a  "  snap-shot." 
They  made  no  tryst  for  further  meet- 
ings, but  each  knew,  as  if  the  words 
had  been  spoken,  that  the  little 
brook  would  witness  many. 

At  dinner.  Uncle  Amos  inquiring 
if  he  had  spent  a  pleasant  morning, 
Garrett  replied  that  he  had,  and 
went  so  much  further  as  to  add  that 


52  DIVIDED 

he  had  been  looking  for  a  good,  level 
place  to  set  up  his  tennis. 

But  after  Uncle  Amos  had  gone 
back  to  his  haying,  Garrett  followed 
Aunt  Leila  into  the  kitchen  and  took 
up  his  station,  with  her  permission, 
in  the  vine-shaded  back  porch,  with 
his  bull-dog  pipe  and  an  air  of  lazy 
contetit,  but  an  inward  burning  to 
find  out  all  he  could  about  Aurora 
Russell. 

After  some  desultory  remarks  about 
the  state  of  the  weather  for  haying, 
and  answers  to  Aunt  Leila's  in- 
quiries about  members  of  his  family, 
he  observed : 

"  While  I  was  looking  for  a  place 
to  lay  out  my  tennis  court,  this 
morning,  I  stumbled  on  that  little 
Aurora  Russell  I  used  to  play  with, 
years  ago  when  I  was  here." 

"She's  a  real  nice  little  thing," 
said  his  aunt;  "but  I  mistrust  how 


DIVIDED  53 

she  's  goin'  to  turn  out,  —  the  way 
her  father  brings  her  up."„_:^___^ 

On  Garrett's  inquu-y  what  that 
way  might  be,  practical,  hard-work- 
ing Aunt  Leila  shook  her  head 
ominously. 

"  You  know  her  ma  was  a  school- 
teacher," she  began,  "  and  had  a  lot 
of  high-falutin'  notions.  Not  that 
poetry  and  all  that  ain't  all  right  for 
them  that  have  time  for  it,  but  you 
can't  run  a  farm  and  moon  over 
poetry  books  at  the  same  time,  and 
Aurora's  ma  wa'n't  never  no  help- 
meet to  her  pa ;  it 's  kind  of  a  good 
thing  she  died,  poor  body,  though 
it  does  seem  hard  to  say  it.  Now 
this  little  gal's  got  her  ma's  ways, 
all  over ;  and  her  pa,  Jake  Russell,  is 
that  soft  over  the  child,  and  that 
foolish  about  thinkin'  mebbe  farm  life 
was  too  hard  for  her  ma,  and  wore 
her  out    before  her    time,  that   he 


X. 


(H 


^Mi(^ 


J     > 
DIVIPED 


a.  v)   }t'' 


don't  make  Aurora  clo  a  thing, — hires 
help  to  keep  the  house,  and  lets  that 
young  gal  do  as  she  pleases.  Fortu- 
nately she  's  a  good  child,  and  never 
does  no  harm.  But  that  ain't  the 
point,  I  say  I  What  is  the  point  is 
what's  goin*  to  become  of  that  gal 
when  her  pa 's  dead  and  gone,  or 
when  she 's  married  to  some  hard- 
workin'  farmer  that  '11  need  his  but- 
ter made,  and  his  cookin'  done,  and 
•~  a  thousand  things,  and  her  knowin' 
nothin'  'bout  any  of  them,  only  'bout 
poetry^ and  the  likes!  It 's  a  terrible 
thing  to  bring  up  a  shiftless  gal  in 
these  parts,  I  can  tell  you  I" 

Garrett  made  no  reply,  but,  towards 
three  o'clock,  he  remarked  that  he 
believed  he  would  take  a  book  **  out, 
somewhere,"  and  study,  and,  Shelley 
in  hand,  took  the  direction  of  the 
brook,  where  he  found  Aurora, 
without  a  book  this  time,  her  slim 

I: 


1> 


IVIDED  55 


brown  hands  clasped  about  her  up- 
drawn  knees  and  a  wondrous  look  of 
eager  expectancy imJiersw|etjoung 
face.  T— 

Intimacy  becomes  a  tEing^dTlno- 
ments  under  such  conditions.  With- 
in three  days  Aurora  had  confided  to^ 
Garrett  the  story  of  the  poem,  and 
her  belief  that  the  brook  symbolized 
parting  such  as  theirs  of  six  years 
before,  with  the  fluttering  of  letters, 
first,  then  silence.  ""^^^ 

"  But  now  I  have  you  back  again," 
said  the  little  maid,  naively.  She 
made  no  secret  of  her  joy  in  him. 

And  within  a  week  Garrett  had 
written  three  poems  to  her,  had  pho- 
tographed her  daily,  and  had  made 
her  the  repository  of  all  his  dreams 
touching  a  poetic  career. 

And  so  the  summer  waxed  to  its 
zenith.  Billy,  the  collie,  was  adopted 
into  the  concern ;  the  guitar  was  kept 


>        ..^ 


_/ 


56  BIYID^B 

strung  for  the  playing  of  plaintive 
little  melodies  out  under  the  trees 
on  warm,  moonlit  July  nights;  the 
"Sportsman's  Standard"  came  into 
use,  because,  while  one  may  not  talk 
and  catch  trout,  one  may  talk  and  fish 
foi*  them,  and,  moreover,  in  circum- 
stances like  these,  one  may  be  very 
still  and  yet  very  happy.  The  tennis 
got  little  use,  however,  and  the  dizzy 
high  bicycle  still  less.  And  it  was 
to  be  feared  that  those  of  Garrett's 
books  to  which  he  was  giving  most 
attention  were  not  those  familiarity 
with  which  makes  for  highest  marks 
in  a  college  examination.  But  there 
was  none  to  chide,  and  few  but  the 
brook  itself  and  the  cows  in  the 
south  meadow  knew  what  was  going 
on  under  the  shade  of  sycamores  and 
willow  bushes  by  the  brook's  brink. 
In  August  the  inevitable  happened ; 
they  had  a  quarrel.    Like  most  seri- 


DIVIDED  57 

ous  quarrels,  it  began  in  some  abso- 
lutely unimportant  trifle.  They  had 
agreed  to  meet  by  the  brook  on  an 
August  afternoon  at  three  o'clock. 
It  was  a  torrid  day,  a  day  of  sullen 
heat, — overhead  a  brazen  sky,  under- 
foot a  baked,  dry  earth.  At  noon 
Aurora's  father  came  in  from  the 
fields  exhausted,  seeing  through  a 
red  mist  and  dizzy  unto  nausea.  In 
their  seldom-used  parlor,  a  north 
room,  the  green  shutters  were  tight- 
closed,  only  a  faint  ray  of  light  strug- 
gling in  through  their  crevices,  and 
there  Jake  Russell  laid  him  down  on 
the  horsehair  sofa,  with  a  cool,  clean 
pillow  under  his  giddy  head,  and 
cloths  wrung  out  of  cold  well-water 
laid  on  his  forehead  and  at  the  base 
of  his  brain.    ^,  ,;o)^ 

To  Aurora,  who  came  to  him  in 
alarm,  he  said  there  was  nothing  to 
worry  about,  only   on   no    account 


58  DIVIDED 

must  she  venture  out  of  the  house 
before  sundown.  Aurora  had  been 
an  indulged  child,  but  she  had  never 
learned  disobedience  therefrom,  and 
^three  o'clock  came  and  went,  and 
she  kept  no  tryst  by  the  brook. 

The  sun  was  no  sooner  down, 
however,  than  she  sped  to  the  meet- 
ing place,  hopeful  that  Garrett  might 
have  been  detained  at  home  by  his 
uncle's  counsel,  and  perchance  be  at 
the  brook  now.  But  he  wasn't; 
nor  was  he  there  next  morning,  nor 
that  afternoon,  and  poor  little  Au- 
rora's heart  grew  sicker  and  sicker 
as  the  hours  dragged  by  and  he  did 
not  come. 

Perhaps  he  had  been  sunstruck, 
was  her  agonized  thought.  But  a 
moment's  reflection  showed  her  that 
if  anything  had  happened  to  Garrett, 
the  fact  would  have  been  neighbor- 
hood news  long  ere  this. 


DIVIDED  59 

Another  day,  and  another  went 
by,  and  the  girl  went  faithfully  to 
the  brook  twice  each  day,  and  waited 
and  waited,  going  home  each  time  to 
throw  herself  on  her  bed  and  cry, 
until  a  whole  week  went  by  and 
the  misery  in  her  face  smote  even 
her  unobservant  father  with  alarm. 
Questioned,  she  said  there  was  noth- 
ing the  matter,  but  her  father 
watched  her  eating  with  an  anxious 
eye,  ordered  chicken  broth  for  her, 
and  saw  that  she  ate  it,  resting  as 
content,  when  she  did,  as  those 
kindly  souls  ever  do  who  act  on  the 
belief  that  there  can  be  no  real  ill  if 
eating  be  possible. 

Meanwhile,  over  at  the  Levering 
farm,  a  haughty  boy  nursed  a  griev- 
ance. It  had  been  hot  that  after- 
noon,—  certainly!  Who  knew  it 
better  than  he,  who  had  toiled  two 
miles  in  the  blistering  mid-afternoon 


60  DIVIDED 

sun  to  keep  his  tryst?  She  had  but 
a  few  steps  to  come,  down  through 
the  shady  orchard,  and  yet  she  had 
kept  him  there  waiting,  a  whole 
hour  and  a  half  of  oven  heat,  aug- 
mented by  his  impatience  to  read  to 
her  a  sonnet  he  had  composed  to  her 
that  morning.  He  considered  it  the 
finest  thing  he  had  ever  done  in  a 
poetic  way.  Using  a  poet's  license  to 
cover  the  anachronism,  he  acclaimed 
Aurora  as  her 

' '  Whose  name  the  Dawn  hath  borrowed  to  express 
Acme  of  dewy  freshness." 

Hot,  hurt,  and  very  angry,  Grarrett 
returned  home.  His  first  impulse,  to 
destroy  the  sonnet,  was  succeeded  by 
the  sober  second  thought  that  a  fine 
poem  was  worth  all  the  girls  in  exist- 
ence. Suppose  Keats  had  torn  things 
up  when  Fanny  Brawne  irritated 
him !     Perish  the  thought !     But  no, 


.^^ 


■^ 


DIVIDED  61 

— it  was  not  such  a  bad  thought  after 
all,  for  did  it  not  lead  to  the  reflection 
how  poets,  in  all  times,  have  suffered 
at  the  caprice  of  vain,  silly  women 
and  thus,  "  cradled  into  poetry  by 
wrong,"  have  "learned  in  suffering 
what  they  teach  in  song." 

This  enduring  indignities  in  great 
company  kept  Garrett  interested  and 
busy,  poetically  busy,  for  a  week,  at 
the  end  of  which  time  he  was  con- 
fronted with  an  old,  old  need,  —  the 
need  of  some  one  to  read  his  pas- 
sionate verses  to. 

He  considered  Aunt  Leila  for  the 
honor,  but  recalled  what  she  thought 
of  poetry  for  all  but  the  strictly 
leisure  class;  he  thought  of  Uncle 
Amos,  but  knew  him  to  be  out  of  the 
question.  Finally  he  thought  of 
Aurora!  To  tell  the  truth,  the  idea 
of  what  posterity  might  think  of  his 
heart-broken  verses  did  not  move  him 


62  DIVIDED 

to  half  the  curiosity  he  felt  to  know 
what  she  would  think  of  them  whose 
light  caprice  had_calledjhem  into 
being.  -•=^~=: 

After  eight  interminable  days, 
therefore,  he  repaired  to  the  brook, 
and  there,  as  he  had  confidently  ex- 
pected, he  found  Aurora,  pale  and 
red-eyed,  and  so  very,  very  humble 
that  he  forgave  her  at  once,  though 
he  had  not  meant  to.  Mso,  when  she 
cried,  he  kissed  her,  which  he  had 
not  meant  to  do  either,  and  which, 
when  it  was  done,  so  surprised  and 
confused  them  both  that  they  sat 
silent  for  a  long  while ;  the  kiss  had 
disarmed  them  both  for  the  defensive, 
and  made  each  anxious  to  claim  the 
fault. 

Presently  Garrett  noticed  that 
Aurora  had  a  book  in  her  lap,  the 
red-bound  book  of  Jean  Ingelow's 
poems  she  had  had  when  he  found 


DIVIDED  63 

her  here  in  June,  and  on  his  speak- 
ing of  it,  Aurora  opened  up  her  heart 
about  her  poem.  ._  i^^.- 

"I  never  could  understand  it," -she 
said,  the  tears  shining  in  her  brown 
eyes,  "but  now  I  do.  It  was  a  mis- 
understanding,—  a  little,  little  thing, 
at  first,  but  neither  of  them  would 
*  cross  over'  until  it  had  grown  so  big 
they  couldn't,  and  it  was  too  late." 


.*;j.'.A^>- 


yr>- 


^P'' 
^^^, 


^^ 


-Al''-' 


■M. 


-,i   «te(ti 


'% 


pan  ci^ree 


.:.,'h/' 


:^&- 


■^^ 


'^^J 


4i} 


^^^J^ltll.^^h' 


A  FTER  Garrett  left  that  summer, 
-^^  a  divine  discontent  stirred  the 
spirit  of  Aurora. 

"  Pa,"  she  had  said  to  Jake  Russell 
in  May,  "  I  wish  we  could  have  our 
house  painted.  I  'm  ashamed  to  live 
in  such  a  shabby  house." 

And,  "Well  now,  'Rory,"  her  father 
had  replied,  thoughtfully,  "  I  dunno 
but  we  kin.  What  color  would  y' 
like  it! "  ^^' 

When  Garrett  was  coming,  her 
anxieties  were  all  directed  toward  a 
better  material  showing.  She  had 
felt  the  defiant  pride  of  the  brown- 
stone  house  that  towered  into  the 
sky.  '  *^ 

When  he  left,  Aurora  had  well-nigh 
forgotten  the  tall  house  and  all  it  im- 

67 


68  DIVIDED 

plied,  for  Garrett's  boastfulness  had 
evolved  from  the  prowess  of  his  father 
and  the  height  of  his  dwelling  to 
things  worlds-removed  from  the  ma- 
terial. He  confided  to  Aurora  how 
little  likely  his  people  were  to  appre- 
ciate his  determination  to  be  a  poet, 
and  there  came  a  noble  dignity  into 
his  bearing  when  he  spoke  of  the 
slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fort- 
une that  he  expected  to  suffer  in  his 
ardent  spirit,  and  the  path  of  anguish 
that  would  doubtless  be  his  path  to 
fame. 

"  You  must  be  my  Mary  Shelley, 
Aurora,"  he  had  told  her.  And,  with 
eyes  very  round  with  awe  and  sym- 
pathy, Aurora  promised  that  she 
would. 

"  Pa,"  she  said  to  Jake  Russell,  the 
day  after  Garrett  left,  "  I  want  to  go 
to  school." 

"Why,  'Rory,"  was  his  surprised 


DIVIDED  69 

comment,  "I  thought  y'  'd  been 
through  the  school  I  " 

"Oh,  that  school!"  retorted  Au- 
rora, contemptuously,  "  that  '5  noth- 
ing! I  mean  to  a  real  school, 
where  you  get  education.  I  want  to 
go  to  a  Young  Ladies'  Seminary,  Pa, 
and  learn  about  gods  and  goddesses 
and  something  called  mythology. ' ' 

"  Well,  now,  'Rory,  I  dunno  but 
ye  kin,"  said  Jake  Russell;  "  where  'd 
y' like  to  go?" 

And  Aurora  never  knew  what  that 
drawling  assent  that  seemed  to  come 
so  easy  cost  the  man  whose  idol  she 
was.  It  was  n't  dismay  of  the  physi- 
cal separation  that  laid  so  cold  a 
clutch  on  Jake  Russell's  heart.  It 
wasn't  the  silence  of  the  old  house 
he  dreaded,  the  echoing  emptiness  of 
the  little  room  under  the  eaves.  He 
could  have  borne  that  cheerfully,  if 
it  seemed  for  'Rory's  good.    What 


■  eh  J 


"■^ 


,70  DIVIDED 

^^- 

threatened  him  was  the  renewal  of 
an  old  tragedy ;  yet  it  never  occurred 
to  him  to  fight  for  his  heart's  de- 
mands; it  never  occurred  to  him 
that  there  was  anything  for  him  to 
do  but  acquiesce. 

To  a  Young  Ladies'  Seminary 
in  Elmira,  therefore,  Aurora  went, 
and  there  she  learned  a  great  deal 
about  gods  and  goddesses  and  some- 
thing called  mythology,  for  she  took 
what  was  called  the  classical  course. 
-^^^^'And  if  the  teachers  wondered  at  her 
^-^Uavidity  for  Latin  verbs  and  Greek 
fables,  it  was  because  they  did  not 
know  of  a  boy  in  his  freshman  year 
at  a  great  New  England  college,  —  a 
boy  who  wrote  Odes  and  Elegiacs 
so  full  of  classical  allusions  that  it 
required  the  most  downright  "  plug- 
ging ' '  to  interpret  them. 

Letters  that  year  fluttered  thick  as 
leaves  in  Vallombrosa,  but  in  June 


r^-: 


H. 


3>IVIDED 


71 


Garrett's  oft-reiterated  promise  to 
summer  at  Overbrook  was  rescinded. 
He  had  fallen  behind  his  class  in 
mathematics  (hateful,  unpoetic 
things ! )  and  must  summer  where  he 
could  do  "  some  tall  tutoring,"  if  he 
would  enter  on  his  sophomore  year 
with  his  class. 

Aurora  cried  herself  to  sleep  every 
night  for  a  week  after  the  heart- 
breaking letter  came.  She  thought 
the  long,  weary  weeks  of  the  lonely 
summer  would  never  drag  to  an  end. 
There  was  nothing  to  make  them 
tolerable  but  her  letters  to  Garrett 
and  Garrett's  less  frequent  letters  to 
her. 
During  his  sophomore  vacation 
'•  Garrett  came  to  Overbrook  for  a 
brief  fortnight.  The  rest  of  the  sum- 
mer he  was  engaged  for  other  visits. 
But  a  fortnight  was  long  enough  to 
blow  into  lively  flame  i  a  sentiment 


72  DIVIDED 

that  letters  had  not  kept  from  dwin- 
dling to  a  mere  glow. 

Aurora  appealed  potently  to  his 
imagination,  and  she  might  well  have 
spared  herself,  poor  little  maid,  the 
oceans  of  tears  she  shed  in  terror 
lest  some  of  the  stylish  girls  of  his 
acquaintance  win  him  from  her. 
There  was  no  stylish  girl  in  all  his 
world  who  had  one  tithe  of  Aurora's 
reverence.  She  was  all  compounded 
of  a  great  wistfulness  and  a  sym- 
pathy that  was  half  brooding,  wholly 
worshipful.  Other  girls  exacted; 
Aurora  paid  tribute.  So  Aurora  had 
no  rival. 

In  his  junior  vacation  G-arrett 
went  abroad,  but  he  ran  up  to  Over- 
brook  at  Easter,  and  spent  three 
days  "  seeing  Uncle  Amos."  It  was 
then  they  became  engaged. 

Easter  was  in  mid- April  that  year, 
and  with  it   came   a  week  of  the 


DIVIDED  73 

exceptionally  warm  weather  which 
April  oftentimes  brings  to  that  part 
of  the  country.  Buds  unfolded  al- 
most as  one  watched  them,  and  the 
bushes  along  the  brook  in  the  south 
meadow  wore  the  tender  green  of 
poesy  and  the  world's  youth. 

Garrett  talked  to  Aurora  of  his 
career,  -and  she  listened  raptly. 

**  But  you  must  help  me,  dear,"  he 
said ;  "  I  need  you.  You  are  my 
good  angel."  And  Aurora  wept  for 
joy,  hiding  her  face  on  his  shoulder, 
and  said  she  would  love  him  and  live 
for  him  till  she  died. 

After  Grarrett  went  back  to  college, 
there  came  to  Aurora,  in  Elmira,  a 
slender  wire  of  gold  for  her  finger, 
and  hanging  from  it  a  bangle  in 
the  shape  of  a  |ieart  set  with  tiny 
turquoises. 

She  graduated  that  June,  and  Jake 
Russell  went  to  Elmira  to  see  her  in 


74  DfflfiED 

her  ruffled  white  swiss  and  her  flut- 
tering white  ribbons,  and  to  hear  her 
read  her  essay  on  "Uneasy  lies  the 
head  that  wears  a  crown." 

She  had  gone  back  to  school  after 
the  Easter  vacation  without  confid- 
ing to  her  father  the  sweet  secret  of 
her  plighted  troth ;  but  as  they  were 
riding  home  to  Overbrook,  her  school 
life  behind  her,  Jake  Russell  asked 
her  fondly,  what  she  was  going  to 
do,  now,  with  all  her  "  learnin'." 

And  Aurora  looked  up  into  his 
face  with  the  serene  look  of  one 
who  has  never  been  gainsaid,  and 
replied: 

"  I  'm  going  to  marry  Garrett  as 
soon  as  he  gets  a  start  in  his 
career." 

Jake  Russell  was  not  surprised, — 
at  least,  not  greatly.  He  had  ex- 
pected as  much,  and  had  nerved 
himseK  for  it. 


"^F^r^" 


lyTyiDED  75 

"  What  is  his  career?  "  he  asked 
Aurora,  politely.  — 1=^=^^::=--^^ 

"  Poetry,"  answered  Auroia^-^fer' 
vently.  -szrz^z^^ 

Jake    Russell    said    nothing    for  ;^:- 
some     seconds.       Then,    laying     a 
rough,  brown  hand  on  Aurora's  slim     '"^^c^:.^^- 
white  one,  he  crushed  it  in  an  elo- 
quent pressure. 

"  I  hope  you  '11  be  almighty  happy, 
little  gal,"  was  all  he  said. 

Garrett  kept  silence  touching  his 
romantic  hopes  much  longer  than 
Aurora.  He  graduated  with  some 
^clat,  for  he  was  class  poet,  and  the^,,.,^-^^^: 
professors  said  encouraging  things  "^^T^^'  "^ 
about  his  prospects  in  a  literary  way. 
Presumably  they  never  impressed  it 
on  him  that  man  cannot  live  by 
verse  alone,  and  that  poesy  is  not 
properly  a  profession,  but  a  state  of 
mind  that  need  not  be  inimical  to  any 
honest  method  of  earning  a  living. 


76  DIVIDED 

Garrett  had  his  starvation-in-an- 
attic  period,  like  Balzac  and  the 
lamented  Chatterton  and  others 
whose  names  and  sufferings  were, 
in  those  days,  constantly  on  his 
tongue.  He  had,  too,  his  fateful 
period  of  compromise  when  he  con- 
sented 

*' For  life, 
To  work  with  one  hand  for  the  booksellers 
While  working  with  the  other  for  himself 
And  Art." 

And,  contrary  to  his  direful  fore- 
boding, could  find  neither  himself 
nor  his  art  any  whit  the  worse 
therefor. 

During  these  days  it  may  well  be 
believed,  however,  that,  except  in  his 
impassioned  letters  to  Aurora  (im- 
passioned with  his  sense  of  the 
complete,  fundamental  "wrongness 
of  things"),  he  said  little  enough 
^bout  marriage.    Aurora^  who  cared 


DIVIDED  77 


so  little  about  the  material  as  to  be 
almost  abnormal,  yearned  to  share 
the  attic  and  the  crust  (which  were 
fairly  figurative,  however),  but  de- 
ferred to  Grarrett's  assurance  that  it 
would  be  impossible. 

With  her  whole  soul  she  longed 
for  him,  —  for  the  sound  of  his  voice, 
the  touches  of  his  hands,  the  thrill 
of  his  presence.  But  if  she  was 
different  from  Jake  Russell  in  many 
respects,  she  was  like  him  in  others, 
and  she  accepted  what  seemed  to 
her  the  inevitable  with  quiet  uncom- 
plainingness.  There  were  times 
when  her  great  wistfulness  for  her 
boy  lover  was  almost  more  than  she 
could  bear,  and  she  would  creep  out 
to  the  south  meadow  and  sit  in  the 
shade  of  the  bushes  by  the  brookside 
and  shut  her  eyes  tight,  and  try  to 
imagine  him  beside  her.  And  when 
the  effort  failed  her,  as  it  was  boun<J 


~'H»iT 


-^■^' 


78  DIVIDED 


•¥ 


to  (poor  child!),  she  would  lay  her 
head  on  the  grass  and  cry,  —  silently, 
not  bitterly  nor  rebelliously,  but 
with  a  piteous  loneliness. 

She  read  Keats  and  Shelley  more 
in  those  days  than  Jean  Ingelow 
and  Longfellow,  but  the  poem  about 
the  brook  was  always,  for  its  associ- 
ations, very  dear  to  her,  and  its  sym- 
bolism was  rich  in  satisf yingness ;  it 
had  something  in  it  for  almost  every 
lonely  mood.  .-*«« 

Sometimes  she  thoughfiFwas  the 
necessity  of  bread-winning,  —  the 
curse  imposed  at  Eden's  barred  and 
guarded  gate,  —  that  tore  men  away 
from  the  women  whose  hands  they 
had  clasped  in  the  flower-starred 
meadows  of  youth.  And  sometimes 
she  told  herself  that  the  dividing 
stream  was  a  stream  of  caste,  of 
small  account  in  childhood,  but  im- 
passable in  later  years. 


DIVIDED 


79 


But  always  love  overcame  fear,  and 
she  returned  to  her  belief  that  across 
the  spaces  of  country  and  caste  and 
the  world-old  separation  of  the  Curse, 
she  had  tight  hold  of  his  hand,  and, 
so  holding  it  in  all  despite,  would 
j;n^^^ilive  and  die. 

She  taught  the  country  school  at 
-"'  O verbrook  in  those  years  of  waiting, 
and  it  was  their  plan  that  Garrett 
should  spend  his  fortnight's  vacation 
at  his  Uncle  Amos' s  each  year.  Bu 
it  is  easier  to  plan,  God  knows,  than^ 
jKk^  to  accomplish.  The  summer  aft e?  his 
■"  graduation  Garrett  was  left  father- 
less, and  it  was  out  of  the  question 
that  he  should  desert  his  mother  in 
the  poignancy  of  her  fresh  grief  to 
idle  away  the  bright,  sad  days 
Overbrook. 

He  ran    up    the    following    Ne 
Year's  and  spent  the  day  with  her, 
and  was  gone  again  ere  she  could 


^* 


80  DIVIDED 

realize  that  lie  had  really  been  with 
her  save  as  he  always  was,  in  her 
dreams.  _ 

After  various  efforts  to  dispose  of 
poetic  dramas  and  narratives  in 
blank  verse  to  the  magazines,  Garrett 
had  adjusted  himself,  though  not 
without  bitterness,  to  the  demands  of 
a  prosaic  time  and  race,  and  whittled 
industriously  at  articles  on  social 
reform  and  kindred  topics. 

The  adjustment  hurt  Aurora  more 
than  it  had  hurt  him.  She  resented, 
both  for  herself  and  for  him,  the 
world's  refusal  to  receive  him,  on  his 
own  terms,  with  open  arms.  But 
social  reform  was  in  the  air  (as  it 
usually  is,  in  one  shape  or  another), 
and  if  Garrett  could  not  get  the 
public  to  hearken  to  his  reform  H 
utterances  when  he  spoke  in  verse, 
as  Shelley  had  spoken,  he  could 
gather  hearers    a-plenty,  he   found, 


J^^^i^Sit 


■ 


lYIDED 


81 


when  he  set  forth  the  same  ideas  in 
story  form.  — -^^riri- 

It  would  seem  as^f  theTery  best 
youth  that  can  go  into  the  making 
of  a  potent  maturity  must  be  com- 
pounded of  wild  flights  of  fancy,  un- 
trammelled desire,  and  the  unabashed 
bombast  of  expectation  that  tran- 
scends the  bounds  of  mere  hope.  One 
must,  while  the  soaring  power  is 
strong,  go  up  very,  very  high,  in  order 
that  when  one  "settles  down"  the 
settling  may  not  reach  too^Jow  a 
level. 

Garrett    had    been    an    absurdly - 
natural,  ingenuous  youth,  and  he  be- 
came, in  due  process  of  shaking  up 

pand  settling  down,  something  more 
than  a  dull,  feebly-aspiring  man.    He 

Succeeded.     He  had  enthusiasm,  and 

the  world  loves  enthusiasm, — if  it 

*'^*  can    understand    it.      And    he    had 

self-confidence,  and  the  world  loves 


'^^^ 


^/^, 


n 


^. 


^'82 


DIVI 


<ift!.-i 


4r*fV«*  -y 


self-confidence,  —  if    it    be   tactfully- 
concealed.  A. 

Gan*ett's  first  book  gained  nim 
recognition  among  the  few  who  dis- 
cern keenly ;  his  second  gained  him  a 
fame  among  the  many  who  acclaim 
^Tbudly.  His  third  book  made  him  a 
full-fledged  celebrity. 

Aurora,  teaching  and  longing   at 
Overbrook,  received  from  him  bundles 
f  newspaper  clippings  in  which  his 
j^-^K^Work  was  extolled,   and  gloried   in 
•:^H;.,i  them  so  that  she  tried  not  to  re- 
"'  member   that   the  letters   enclosing 
them  were  oftentimes  hurried   Sind<^^ 
scant.  ■  ,-:^-MJ 

There  was  nothing  niggardly  in  the 
letters  she  wrote  Grarrett.  She  never 
(dreamed  it,  and  he  was  not  aware  of 
_ .  (so  gradually  had  Aurora  developed, 
,in  his  knowledge  of  her),  but  they 
were  really  wonderful  letters,  —  the 
outpouring  of  a  woman's  heart  such 


m 


LV 


M^ 


DIYIBED  83 

as  it  is  seldom  a  man's  privilege  to 
receive. 

Poetry  liad  never   tilted    futilely 
against  practicality  in  Aurora's  life. 
Such  practicality  as  she  knew  was 
quite  mechanical,  and  no  more  inter- 
fered with  her  poetry  than  breathing   ,r^^; 
interferes  with  love.     She  lived  in  a 
world  of    the   spirit,   and   her    feet.^^^ 
touched  the  homely,  familiar  earth  - 
unconsciously.    She  read,  not  widely 
but  searchingly,  not  so  much  witlfe^?JS>- 
intelligence^ as    with    passion,    and 
she    dreamed    exceedingly,   without 


^  •        bounds 


In  Garrett's  presence,  on  the  few"^' 
occasions  when  he  was  able  to  be 
with  hertor^  a  hurried  visit,  she  was 
constrained  in  the  greatness  of  her 
joy.  It  was  when  he  was  away  from 
her  and  she  sat  in  her  schoolroom, 
after  the  children  were  gone,  or  in 
her  little  room   at  home  under  the 


f- 


J^lM. 


tv^ji%*' r^^i' vi'-^-v  7» '*«k.\***i'»'t^w'^'"'-V'-  v/        v^^'i^^ 


m 


-\ 


84 


DlWSfeDT 


Pf' 


:^r. 


eaves,  and  poured  out  her  heart  to 
him  on  paper,  that  she  came  nearest 
to  satisfying  him. 

He  would  have  missed  her  letters 
sorely;  her  bodily  presence  he  had 
learned  to  do  without.  Thus  it  came 
about  that,  dependent  as  he  was  on 
her  in  a  way,  Grarrett  had  never  been 
impelled  to  make  sacrifices  to  have 
her  constantly  by  him. 

It  was  sweet  to  think  of  the  girl 
up  in  the  country  who  loved  him  and 
revered  him  and  followed  his  every 
move  toward  his  goal  with  burning, 
eager  interest.  It  was  sweet  to  get 
"lier  impassioned  letters,  full  of  un- 
conscious beauty.  It  was  sweet  to 
despatch  her  the  first  copy  obtain- 
able of  each  of  his  books ;  to  inscribe 

lem,  "To  her  who  has  helped  me 

''most  of  all,"  and  to  know  that  she 

gloried  more  in  that  inscription  than 

in  any  other  the  world  could  have 


-■■^.^■■'&, 


DIVIDED  85 

written  over  against  her  name.  All 
these  were  sweet,  but  his  life  was 
very  full.  One  cannot  serve  two 
masters  at  any  time,  but  least  of  all 
if  one  of  them  be  Success. 

There  was  never  any  hint  of  re- 
proach in  Aurora's  letters,  nor  in 
her  manner  when  he  saw  her, — 
never  any  hint  that  the  waiting  was 
weary  to  her,  that  she  felt  her  youth 
slipping  by,  —  the  years  when  she 
should  have  come  into  her  kingdom 
of  home  and  wifehood  and  mother- 
hood. She  never  upbraided  him 
when  he  broke  his  engagements  with 
her  to  keep  others  that  seemed 
more  demanding  to  a  man  whose 
face  was  set  determinedly  toward 
success. 

And  so  the  years  went  by,  —  with 
incredible  swiftness  to  the  man  in 
the  hurly-burly  of  tense,  nerve- 
straining  life ;  with  intolerable  slow- 


Y 


E,-"^'     W 


"W:-^r  ^ 


r 


.86 


)l 


BiyipED 

'S^^~^. 


ness  to  the  woman  in  the  farmhouse 
at  Overbrook. 

For  two  years  Garrett   Levering 
had  not    been   to   Overbrook.      He 
was  working  as  no  slave  ever  worked, 
he  told  her,  —  working  on  a  book 
>*"That  was  to  be  far  and  away  superior 
to  anything  he  had  yet  done.     Every 
..    hour  he   could  get  from  bread- win- 
ning went  into  the  book.     When  it 
as  finished,  they  would  celebrate 
^~^in  long  days  by  the  brook  in  the 
7»v,,,  south  meadow,  he  told  her.    When 
[i-^-^^^fTwas^'finished,  he  would  give  him- 
p^.^lf   a  real  vacation,  would  rest  on 
,'«  ■■   his  oars  awhile,  and  see  how  far  the 
ftl^X    momentum  of  these  straining  strokes 
would  carry  him.     She  must  excuse 
^is    hurried   letters,  —  he   felt    that 
i^e'^ry  pen-stroke  of  which  he  was 
capable   should    go  into    the   book. 
She  must  forgive  him  for  forgetting 
to  send  her  a  birthday  remembrance, 


^-^^ 


1^- 


DIVIDED 


—  he  hadn't  torn  a  page  off  his 
calendar  pad  in  weeks,  ^^^^^s 

She  excused,  she  forgave,  she  con- 
doned neglect  and  overlooked  the 
grinning  grimaces  of  the  monster, 
Self-Absorption.  And  she  counted 
the  weeks  until  the  approximate 
time  he  had  set  for  the  book's 
completion. 

"In  six  weeks  I'll  come,"  he 
wrote  her;  and  then,  "You  may 
expect  me  in  about  three  weeks;'* 
and  thenu. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  'H  think 
of  me,  Aurora  dear,  but  I  've  con- 
^tracted  for  another  book  to  be  de- 
livered not  later  than  six  months 
from  now.  I  did  n't  mean  to  do  it, — 
didn't  want  to,  really;  but  the^ 
offer  came  unsolicited,  and  it  was  so 
flattering  I  didn't  feel  I  dared  re- 
fuse. My  hand  is  tired;  my  brain 
is  tired.    I  want  to  see  you  and  I 


\. 


88 


DIVIDED 


<a 


fe%_,..^, 


,^>^ 


mi 


cannot.  But  I  must  make  a  begin- 
ning. After  that,  the  rest  will  come, 
somehow." 

That  night  Aurora  lay  long  on  the 
floor  of  her  little  room  beneath  the 
eaves,  her  head  on  her  arms,  which 
were  stretched,  in  an  abandon  half  - 
.weariness,  half  wistfulness,  on  the 
window-sill. 

Later,  when  the  lights  in  all  the 
houses  in  Overbrook  had  gone  out,  a 
amp  burned  in  the  little  room  that 
had  seen  so  much  of  iha  travail,  as 
child  and  woman,  of  a  loving  heart. 

Still  there  was  no  reproach  in  the 
letter,  —  only  sorrow. 

"You  may  remember,"  she  wrote, 
"  the  poem  of  Jean  Ingelow's  I  have 
often  spoken  of  to  you.  I  can't  get  ^rr 
|t  .out  of  my  mind  to-night.  I  used  ' 
to  think  it  was  a  quarrel  that  divided 
them,  but  I  don't  think  so  now; 
people  get  over  quarrels,   even  the 


Cr.^- 


DIVIDED 


89 


(t^iua*"- 


worst.  And  I  used  to  think  it  might 
be  caste,  social  differences,  an  ever- 
widening  inequahty  of  me^ns  or 
mind ;  but  I  don't  think  so  now,  for 
if  the  books,  which  are  all  my  world, 
^^^peak  the  truth,  love  is  greater  than 
:i^%ttxese.  I  think  it  was  a  career,  dear. 
I  think  she  helped  him  find  it,  when 
-  they  were  both  young  and  light- 
hearted  and  thought  only  of  how 
they  would  journey  into  the  great 
world  by  its  winding  flow,  and  never 
dreamed  how,  presently,  it  would 
divide  them,  and  how,  always,  it 
would  widen  the  breach  between 
^:them  from  thenceforth.  I  don't 
know,  now,  why  they  don't  go  back 
when  they~see  that  they  must  let  go 
each  other's  hands  to  follow  farther, 
— or  why  one  of  them  does  not  cross 
_  over.  But  I  guess  there  's  no  going 
.back  along  the  way  we  've  come  ;  I 
guess  it's  the   law  of  life  that    we 


r 


90 


DIVIDED 


*® 


have  to  keep  on  in  the  way  our  feet 
are  set,  and  there  's  no  crossing  over, 
—  each  to  his  own  side,  with  the 
stream  between ;  first,  kisses  thrown 
across,  then  calls  of  mutual  reassur- 
ance, then  only  signals  of  remem- 

ance,  then  nothing,  —  void,  silence, 
the  sunshine  on  the  broad  bosom  of 
4he  river,  cowslips  giving  place  to 
"cities  on  its  brim,  the  current  thread- 

g  the  mazes  of  commerce  instead 
the  long,  sweet  grasses  of  the 
'"meadows,  and  by  and  by  the  ocean, 
the  illimitable,  the  end,  —  and  not 
even  the  faint  flutter  of  a  far,  white 
handkerchief  discernible  when  one 
puts  out  to  sea.  To-night,  dear,  as 
I  knelt  by  the  window  of  my  little 
room  and  looked'  out,   out,   out   in 

ncy  over  the  broad  earth,  and 
then  up  at  the  kindly  stars  above,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  the  world  must 
be  full  of  men  and  women  who  have 


^^D%^Vy 


A 


— ^ 


DIVIDED 


91 


' -ff^ 

suffered  this  great,  universal  anguish, 
this  letting-go  of  hands  .  .  .  and,  oh, 
dearest,  your  signals  are  already 
growing  faint.  I  can_aQ^Jonger 
touch  your  ihand  across  the  little 
-etream.  I  can  hardly  hear  your  old 
familiar  voice.  The  cowslips  are^ 
far,  far  behind,  the  masts  and  spires 
of  the  city  loom  in  the  near  pros- 
pect; beyond  them  is  the  ocean! 
I  know  you'll  be  angry,  I  know 
you  '11  call  me  blind,  foolish,  selfish; 
but,  oh,  I  wish  we  'd  never  left  the 
'meadows;  I  wish  we  'd  never  Ter  go 
s^hands;  I  wish  there  were  no  riyerj,^ 
no  city  of  masts  and  spires !''... 

Shortly  after  noon  the  next  day, 
Jake  Russell  walked  into  the  little 
office  where  Garrett  Levering  did 
his  writing,  and  laid  a  letter  on  the 
F'.^idesk  where  sheets  of  Garrett's  new 
book  lay  scattered- 


92 


DIVIDED 


"  'Rory  's  sick,"  said  the  older  man, 
abruptly ;  "  she  was  took  in  the 
night,  and  I  found  that  letter,  ad- 
dressed to  you,  in  her  room.  I  've 
read  it,"  he  finished  and  waited. 
Grarrett  read  the  letter,  then  laid 
is  head  in  his  arms,  folded  on  his 
esk,  and  wept.  The  hard  lines  about 
ake  Russell's  mouth  broke,  and  his 
lips  twitched  as  he  laid  a  rough  hand 
•n  the  young  man's  shoulder. 

"  Thank   God  fer  givin'  you  this 
fair  notice,"  he  said;  " iiot  many  of  ^_; 
git^it." 

And  late  that  night  Grarrett  crept 
up  to  the  little  room  under  the  eaves 
where  Aurora  lay,  spent  with  the 
spirit's  weariness,  and  bent  over  her 
and  whispered,  "  Give  me  your  hand 
hold,  mv  dear, — till  death 


A  Q^^ 


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w?r 


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